Thursday, March 28, 2013

I Support Marriage Equality but My Profile Picture Will Not Go Red

I support marriage equality but won't be changing my profile picture on Twitter or Facebook. Call
me shallow, but my decision has to do with aesthetics.

Red and pink?!? Even if you call it "crimson and salmon," it's still ugly. I shudder to think (or dare articulate) what the pink might represent.

Everyone is so darn sensitive these days, I can't even bust out one-liners that would've been perfectly fine back in the 1970s when I was a gay activist.* I mourn those days of smart snark when only the most doctrinaire radical separatist lesbian feminists got easily offended about anything having to do with sex, gender, or sexuality. Everyone else was Free to Trash You and Me.

Outraged offense is so revoltingly mainstream these days that I nearly wept with gratitude when I saw this:

*That's right, I was a gay activist. Yes, my husband knows about this.

7 comments:

Free to trash you and me... I love you. And what you say is so true. I offended some people because I did change to the not-asthetically-pleasing symbol, but mostly because they are not... um, open minded.

OK I have to steal this from you for the next few days. I will give it back, I promise. (And somehow I am completely so not surprised you were a gay activist. what surprises me is that you say "were") :)

Here's what I wrote about it on Facebook, addressing certain friends who were dismissing the idea outright:

To those who resist changing their profile pictures because they think it's merely trendy, here's why I changed mine. It's not that I'm MORE in support of gay marriage this week than I was last week. It's that I love what it means to see so many beautiful squares among my friends' profile pictures - and I hope I'll see even more.

(And as it turned out, I did. Lots and lots. Symbols made of bricks and bacon and wedding rings and elven script and strawberry shortcake. I love my friends.

Here's what I wrote about it on Facebook, addressing certain friends who were dismissing the idea outright:

To those who resist changing their profile pictures because they think it's merely trendy, here's why I changed mine. It's not that I'm MORE in support of gay marriage this week than I was last week. It's that I love what it means to see so many beautiful squares among my friends' profile pictures - and I hope I'll see even more.

(And as it turned out, I did. Lots and lots. Symbols made of bricks and bacon and wedding rings and elven script and strawberry shortcake. I love my friends.